In the last ten years, espresso pop up shops, coffee trolleys, and artisanal pour-overs have proliferated across central London and into the furthest reaches of the city -- meaning (thankfully) that an excellent cup of coffee is never more than a few streets away.

Before you order an espresso at a Seattle coffee bar, you can often read where the coffee beans came from, how those beans were roasted--and even a short résumé of the barista who's making your cup. Such passion made Seattle a shoo-in to win the title of best coffee city.

Brewing coffee beans is like cooking garlic. If you use bigger chunks of garlic, the taste is mild; if you put garlic through a press or finely dice it, the taste can be overwhelmingly powerful, even bitter. This is why chefs harp about cutting into uniform size. Coffee's no different.

Dark roast is terrible in more ways than one. Sorry folks. Your oily, burnt French and Italian roasts are the antithesis of what today's coffee should be. It's not your fault that you've been told to enjoy this stuff for so long.

It's been more than two decades since Starbucks started serving designer lattes in Seattle, and America's obsession with coffee continues to grow as a new wave of independent, boutique cafés opens across the country.